Parashat Terumah 5770
To-Marrow, To-Marrow, Is Just a Life Away
Right before leaving for a short weekend trip to Houston to celebrate my Mother-in-Law’s 85th birthday party with my wife and her seven siblings, their children, and grandchildren – close to sixty in all – I stopped at the bookstore to pick up my daughter who needed a book to read for school. I had no intention of buying myself another book since I had plenty of others unread sitting on the shelf in my bedroom waiting for my attention. No sooner had I crossed the threshold of the entrance when I was greeted by a gentleman in a suit who was attempting to sell a book that he authored. On the cover was a picture of Kevin Walsh, the author and the man standing before me, contemplating a final golf shot. For a man who is more interested in baseball than golf, on the surface, this was not the book I would have chosen to take with me on the plane. I told the author that I would come back to talk to him after I found my daughter. Being true to my word, I returned to the store entrance to share a kind word with Kevin while my daughter stood in line.
Kevin was determined to convince me that his book would be well worth my while. He asked me if I had read “Tuesdays With Morrie.” Who hasn’t read Mitch Albom’s epic story about his professor who died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease and the wisdom that he shared with one of his students? Kevin then said to me that his story would match the heart-felt warmth that was a major part of that story. It was then that I focused on the title of the book, “The Marrow In Me,” and it dawned on me how beshert this moment had been. While reading his book, it became even more evident how these moments of “beshert,” more than just chance circumstances, influence us in our daily lives as we look for purpose and meaning. As Kevin mentions several times in his book, God works through us in mysterious ways that cannot be explained otherwise.
Not too long ago, Lisa Kosan appealed to the members of her religious community and the greater North Shore Jewish Community to help her brother-in-law in New York who was in immediate need of a marrow transplant to save his life from leukemia. Bone marrow registrations were held on several dates as various Jewish organizations world-wide appealed to the masses on-line, encouraging people to register with a simple test of swabbing the cheek, in the hope of finding a match. Unfortunately, Allan Cohen did not survive long enough to receive a transplant. He succumbed to an infection that attacked an already compromised immune system. However, his death was not in vain. Many individuals who would not otherwise considered becoming a registrant came forward, including myself.
“The Marrow In Me” is Kevin’s story of how he, as a reporter in Hawaii, became involved in a story that he produced. He interviewed a young executive with a wife and two sons who discovered that he was diagnosed with leukemia. While chipping balls at the golf range, he reached into the bucket and discovered a ball that had two words written on it: “beat leukemia.” This was the sign from God that he needed to give him the faith to carry on with the task of registering others in the hope that a donor would be found that would save his life. For Kevin, this was a life-changing story as he became personally involved with this man and in time, other stories that would begin to shape his life. Not only did Kevin become a donor, he also had the privilege of becoming a courier, delivering blood marrow to where it was needed by boarding a number of planes carrying a thermal tote that required his careful attention every couple of hours to ensure that his precious cargo would not spoil in transit.
I choose to talk about this subject on this week because it ties in nicely with the opening words to the Torah portion when the Israelites who were wandering in the wilderness were asked to make a donation for the building of the Mishkan, a place for the Presence of the Divine to rest. Knowing that the Divine Spirit could never be confined to a box of any size or shape, the edifice that the Israelites were asked to build must have served an additional purpose, to which God responds in cryptic form. “If you build it… I will dwell within them.” For W.P. Kinsella and Kevin Costner (who portrayed Ray Kinsella in “The Field of Dreams”) who heard voices in a cornfield encouraging him to follow through on his dream or life’s purpose, building a baseball diamond was an act of faith and courage, in the same way that Kevin Walsh followed the dictates of his heart and the faith that was given to him by Saint Jude and his religious convictions as a Catholic.
For me, the defining moment of his book was his interpretation of the word “Aloha” as it is offered to people when they come to Hawaii where he was establishing himself as a television reporter and newscaster. He writes, “Aloha is the most recognizable word in the Hawaiian language. (Like Shalom in Hebrew) In today’s translation aloha is a simple greeting with a double meaning hello and goodbye. But that one simple word says a lot about who you are and what you know… Aloha in its ancient interpretation literally means ‘sharing the breath life’…” In our own faith tradition we have a similar word that is an integral part of our daily worship each morning. We recited the words “Elohai neshamah shenata bi tehora hee… — God, the soul (breath of life) that you have given me is pure…” King David comes to the conclusion at the end of the Book of Psalms with a symphony of music and dance, ending with the words “Kol haneshamah tehalel Yah – Every soul (breath of life) praises God.” So fragile are we in this world of delicate balance, the thing that we take for granted most is the essence of what makes us human, the breath of life. And yet, it is used as a common greeting in the Hawaian language, and as an introduction to daily worship each day in the Jewish tradition.
Perhaps this is what God was referring to when God granted humans life and instructed Moses and the Israelites to find a place inside of themselves where God could have an influence over them – because they had become so empty by their experiences in Egypt. But the breath of life is not the only thing that sustains us in the presence of the Divine Spirit. God gave us blood to course through our veins and arteries, and this, too, is a miracle, how the body functions. With the help of science we are beginning to understand just a fraction of the mysteries that God has hidden in the blood stream and the properties of this substance. There are some properties that all humans share in common, while others offer us our uniqueness, our individuality. It is in the differences that we discover the challenge of sustaining life when something goes wrong. The fact that we need to search so hard to find a compatible donor to someone who is sick with leukemia through a donation of marrow from one person to another, makes the gift of life all that much more special.
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that I finished reading “The Marrow In Me” on the same week that we read the Torah portion of Terumot, which means gifts. On Valentines Day, many of us gave gifts of varying significance and value to our loved ones. However, how do these gifts compare to the donation of a bodily fluid that has the potential to save another person’s life, and there is no other person with quite the same chemical makeup as yours that is eligible for the task. On this Shabbat I am truly grateful for the time that I took to register as a donor through the Gift of Life campaign. Even though it is a difficult lesson to learn when individual transplants may not lead to a long life for its recipient, any length of time that you may give to that individual and their family is an eternal one that can never be measured in normal ways.
There is no knowing how many others may be influenced to participate in the registry when each story is told. For Alan and his loved ones, may his memory continue to be a source of blessing onto others who were moved to do a mitzvah. To Kevin, I admire your willingness to tell your story and that of others to give life where hope appears so dim. You are a true gift to this world with your perseverance and your drive to influence others with the Divine Spirit that is to be found in each of us, as we seek to make our world a better place as part of our communal and humanitarian purpose in life.
